Maslow's hierarchy of blogging

1. Naming.  When finally committing to starting a new blog, a blogger needs to find a unique name for his blog which at once indicates his depth of thought as well as his insouciant whimsicality toward the whole thing.  He also needs an online handle which will fulfill the same needs for him.
2. Posts.  Now that she has a blog name and a handle, the blogger actually needs to post something.  She feels fulfilled by coming up with an idea and writing something observant or clever which is long enough to be worth reading but not so long as to not be worth reading.
3. Comments.  Once fulfilled by his ability to generate posts on a semi-regular basis the blogger is driven by his insatiable need for comments.  He will seek them out by asking questions in his posts, leaving comments on other blogs to lure readers to his blog, and casually mentioning the fact that he has a blog that people leave comments on to acquaintances.  He will check his blog dozens of times each day to see if there are any new comments.
4. Subscribers.  Comments are eventually taken for granted as merely the blogger's due return for her efforts.  What she really wants now are subscribers, a.k.a. followers.  She wants a little band of imaginary friends who owe her fealty and might perhaps, in the event of some kind of internet war, be drafted into her private army to fight for her.  She imagines that they check her blog dozens of times each day to see if there are any new posts.
5. Notoriety.  The blogger has now gathered his disciples but what he wants is fame.  He'd like, for example, for his blog to be mentioned in another blog, or in a newspaper, or for him to overhear people at the next table in a trendy cafe discussing some uproarious post that he recently wrote.  Ideally, he'd like for one of his friends who doesn't realize that it is in fact he who writes the blog to recommend it to him.
6. A book deal.  If only someone would just email her and offer to print out all these years of crap and sell them in time for the Christmas gift rush, she'd never have to work again!